A Millennial D.I.Y.-er With the Digitized Touch

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Brittany Morin, the founder of Brit & Co., in her San Francisco office.CreditCreditHeidi Schumann for The New York Times

By Sheila Marikar

Dec. 4, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO — On the morning of Oct. 4, a line of women snaked out the doors of the Festival Pavilion at Fort Mason Center, a space the size of an airplane hangar at the edge of the bay here. They were waiting to get into a conference for “makers” — artists, designers, chefs and other do-it-yourselfers, headlined by Brittany Morin.

Inside, they congregated around a doughnut bar; made their way to seats at long tables dotted with small containers of Legos; and tinkered, texted and chatted with neighbors. But when Ms. Morin walked out, wearing a headset microphone over immaculate waves of long brown hair, they stopped what they were doing.

Brit, as her followers know her, is the founder of Brit & Co. a company dedicated to all things D.I.Y. “Every moment is a canvas,” she said, crossing the stage with a practiced stride. “We are all artists. Show the world your canvas, and help them paint one, too.”

Ms. Morin, who will turn 28 on Friday, is far from the first millennial to style herself as the digitized heir to Martha Stewart, but she may be the most successful, at least by modern metrics. Over the last two years, she and her company have amassed more than 2.9 million followers on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and Google Plus with posts about such topics as how to “trick out” a pair of headphones and turn a stone into a statement necklace.

Unlike the guru of gracious living, though, there is no “Brit way”; Ms. Morin offers loose guidelines rather than rules for the woman who is more comfortable operating an iPad than a glue gun.

“We like to do things that are really simple because we’re trying to reach the woman who thinks she’s not creative, or can’t do it, or doesn’t have that much time,” Ms. Morin said on a recent afternoon at Brit & Co.’s new 9,700-square-foot headquarters. Handmade touches adorn the offices: not pomander balls or tea cozies but items like a wooden “@” symbol; also an array of gadgets, like a MakerBot 3D printer.

“I can’t get enough of that thing,” Ms. Morin said. “I made a wrench the other day and earrings before that.”

Online, though, she models projects that take less than a half-hour to complete and require few materials beyond what the average woman already has. (A May post detailed 15 ways to turn an old T-shirt into jewelry.) While she has a staff of more than 20 people and no longer monitors every concoction, she remains the site’s face, posing in gauzy, busily domestic photo shoots, starring in how-to videos and making TV appearances.

“Brit’s ideas are creative yet very accessible,” said Tammy Filler, a co-executive producer of the third and fourth hours of the “Today” show, on which Ms. Morin often appears. “She has a knack for teaching and uncomplicating D.I.Y. projects.”

Ms. Morin grew up in San Antonio, making pillowcases with her mother, a court reporter, and watching her father, who worked in information technology, take computers apart. (She also developed a predilection for cowboy boots.) When she was 16, she made a purse out of empty cartons of Capri Sun juice. “If you are wondering, yes, it was awesome and I got all kinds of compliments,” she wrote on her site.

At the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied marketing, technology began to edge out textiles. Shegraduated in 2007, one year early, after an internship in Apple’s iTunes group. “Apple was my gateway drug” to Silicon Valley, she said.

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Ms. Morin working with a laser cutter with members of her staff.CreditHeidi Schumann for The New York Times

After a stint at a now-defunct photo-sharing start-up, Ms. Morin landed at Google, working for the search division, where she reported to Marissa Mayer, and Google TV.

She left the company with plans to found a health start-up. At the same time, she was planning her wedding to Dave Morin, the chief executive and a founder of Path, a social network, and she joined TechShop, a chain of workshops. “I was trying to take time to figure out what my hobby was, because I’d forgotten,” she said.

She ended up there for hours on end, laser-cutting a bouquet of wooden roses and other bridal accessories. During her honeymoon in Greece, she and Mr. Morin were in a scooter accident that left them bruised and bandaged, with a lot of time to think. “I realized how much I loved what I was doing at TechShop and I felt that there was a gap in the market for women of today’s age who want to make things,” Ms. Morin said.

Ms. Mayer and Lerer Ventures, among others, have invested in the company, and its board includes Tina Sharkey, a founder of iVillage who said of Ms. Morin: “She has extremely high emotional intelligence and entrepreneurial perseverance. You don’t always find both qualities in one person.”

Not everyone finds her so winning. Ms. Morin has been vilified by Silicon Valley blogs, some of which attribute her success to her marriage to Mr. Morin, a former employee of Facebook. Valleywag has accused her of plagiarizing D.I.Y. tips and tricks from other websites. A disclaimer on Brit & Co. reads, in part, “Any lack of credit is completely unintentional and will be corrected upon notice.”

In person, Ms. Morin appears unfazed by the criticism. “I don’t really focus on it,” she said. “What we’re doing is good and authentic, and I don’t think there’s anything you can be ashamed about if you’re doing something that’s true to who you are and you’re helping people.”

Her more prominent cheerleaders include Randi Zuckerberg, the editor in chief of the lifestyle website Dot Complicated and sister of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. The two often meet in downtown Burlingame, a midpoint between their offices, to share lunch and advice. When the first negative blog post about Brit & Co. hit the Internet, Ms. Zuckerberg texted her congratulations to Ms. Morin.

“You know you’ve made it in the world when people are hating on you,” Ms. Zuckerberg said in a phone interview. “I told her she should be celebrating.”

Certainly Ms. Morin projected exuberance at her offices, describing an LED skirt that lights up when it swings. She also has equanimity: When a large bang came from the test kitchen, she blinked and deadpanned, “That’s awesome.” Did she want to see what happened? “No,” Ms. Morin said. “I’ll be surprised later.”

A few weeks later, at a research and development session, Ms. Morin methodically recounted creating a Christmas kitchen for an event hosted by Lowe’s Home Improvement as three dogs, hanging out after a photo shoot earlier in the day, chased one another around a conference room.

Again, the silky manner of Ms. Stewart came to mind. But Ms. Morin said her goal is not to build a media empire, though she recently signed a deal with HarperCollins for a book tentatively titled “Homemakers: A Modern Guide to Creative Living in the Digital Age.” She is focusing instead on e-commerce. Already, users can buy all-in-one projects called Brit Kits, as well as clothing, accessories and housewares from her online store.

Ms. Morin insists, though, that her main goal is not to sell products but to cultivate and nurture a productive, happy community. “That’s what I care about most,” she said. “That more people are making and more people feel like they are creative.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page E10 of the New York edition with the headline: A Millennial D.I.Y.-er With the Digitized Touch. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe